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Mermaids have been on my mind a lot more than usual this year. I’ve always had a love affair with their images and mythologies, but not enough to study or create them in numbers. Suddenly I can’t stop thinking about them. And this summer I swam in the ocean for the first time in years… Twice!

Something Merm-ish is certainly going on.

Another summer season has come and almost gone, and yet again i failed to make my long-intended journey to Coney Island for the Mermaid Parade. But lately I feel mermaids all around me. Here’s one I’ve been working on… She had me completely stuck where the first video begins. When you’re stuck like that, eventually you either have to paint over everything in lime green (not that i have ever done that), or just commit to whatever is going to happen and start dipping your brush in some paint. I started this mermaid a few weeks ago… the second in a set of two mermaid canvases, and i just could not get past her mushy stage. Just when I was about to start rummaging for my juiciest tube of key lime, i decided she deserved more effort from me. So for fun I started recording Instagram videos… and then I just did stuff. with paint.

I joke with my husband that whenever I’m stuck with a painting and feel like giving up, I just start adding daisieshere and there until I can move on. This is half true, and half because I love 💛 daisies. A lot. I actually think they should be on everything. Seriously.

I hope you’ll enjoy some time-lapse speed painting! (Real time would be intensely painful to watch). She got some daisies of course, and a bit more clothing than originally planned. Follow along to see if she makes it all the way to her varnishing ceremony (and see her in color!), or if she is fated to meet a lime green demise.

I grew up before there was such a thing as a selfie. But today, it’s a part of every day of our life. Whether it is because we need validation in the form of likes and shares, or we simply want to capture a memory for friends or families, ourselves… it is a lovely medium that draws me in for whatever reason. They come to us in the form of friends, family, strangers, celebrities… they are candid or staged, sometimes both. I am not an art scholar. But I believe they are a form of portraiture… however flat, sexy, creative, narcissistic, innocent,, annoying, ugly, pretty… I will be hated and booed for my opinion but i stand by it… in my eyes, these selfies are art.

So many questions form in my head when i see a selfie. I have questions on everything from how they got those facial features to what they had for breakfast. Selfies inspire a lot of my art. Some of my faces are free form from a vision, others are loosely inspired by an photo i see. Then as the piece comes to life… i have even more questions. How is that not art?

Paralyzed. Completely paralyzed by, I’m not sure what… fear? lack of talent? winter blues? Whatever it is, I can’t get the paint from the brush to the canvas. I can’t type a single word without being consumed by doubt and negative voices in my head. Even now, as I type my first blog post in months, all I hear are the bullies in my head telling me, give it up. Nobody cares.

I know I’m not the only person to experience this, yet I find myself feeling very alone on this island. Mostly because I know the obstacles I face are all within me, of my own making. There is no inspirational book, website or video that can help me. There’s no friend I can call for encouragement. There’s no psychedelic drug I can smoke, although that would be groovy. I know at some point I just have to put on my big girl pants and do the work.

But for now Little Orange Studio sits cold and empty, an occasional paint stroke here or there.

I’ll see you around sometime… hopefully soon… covered in glitter and paint.

My niece came to stay overnight last weekend, and we had the nicest time. At least I did, and I hope that she did. We don’t have her over often enough, but each time we do I adore her a little more. I admire her energy, her sense of humor, her maturity, her heart. I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m a kook… but I don’t care. I am a little kooky. I just like to see her being a kid, and discovering things, and having a good time.

Our weekends with her are usually much more active than we are used to, but it is invigorating. I love how tired I am when she goes home. She’s like a personal trainer! LOL. I love to look back at the pictures of our weekends together. She really enjoys being with Uncle Wes… playing video games, learning how to chop wood… but I was elated when she asked if she could paint something. She was hesitant… wasn’t sure what to paint or how to go about it, or even if she wanted to. But she got past that (with a little nudging) and what emerged was the most beautiful painting. She has loved tigers since I can remember… now she has one… her own work of art.

She also made chocolate chip pancakes for us… each one it’s own adorable work of art.

What artsy types of things do you do with the little one’s (or not so little one’s) in your life? If you’d like to show us… join the challenge!

If you have been a regular reader you might be able to guess my dream job. Many might not call it a job…being a full time artist. But there are indeed many people out there that do call it a job. Because it is. And work hard they do. Especially so, when the money is depended on for health insurance, food and shelter. Art doesn’t often come with a weekly predetermined pay-check. Some artists of course have the wonderful fortune of someone supporting their basic needs while they get started and build their work space and body of work. Art of any kine, can be very time consuming work… so time is certainly helpful.

However many, many more artists (as today’s WP challenge suggests) are in the position of needing to maintain a full time job (or two), and a great percentage of those are also caring for children, elderly parents… the challenges can be endless. It may be a little more difficult, and take much longer… but I am a believer that it is still possible to become a Professional Artist, making a living partly or solely with their art. I didn’t always believe that… i didn’t have any idea that was possible. But while not easy, I do know it is certainly possible.

In whichever form the art comes (musical, visual, literary…) the artist is also likely to be a very visual person (or hyper-sensitive in one or more of there 5 senses). In other words… the environment and all it’s elements can play a huge part in your work and how it flows out of you. Again, many artists have an ideal environment to blossom as an artist… while others learn to adapt and put stuff out there no matter what their surroundings might be like. I have a very good fortune of a modest space in my home to devote to my creative habits.

At this moment I make art purely because it’s my passion… was since a very small girl… I just veered off that road when it was time to become a “responsible” adult. And not having been able to have children, it is my therapy and somewhat fills the spaces in my heart that i had intended for motherly purposes most of my life. (If that makes any sense). So sure, it is painful that I am not a mom and/or full time artist, and I definitely have challenges with maintaining the energy to give what I feel is necessary create in the capacity i wish to. However as I mature a little, and see how delicate and short life is… it’s more important to focus on which part of that i canparticipate in. So I do art, and feed my creativity whenever I can, in whatever way i can. The more I embrace that concept.. the more I feel I am coming closer to the fulfillment I long for. I will always have days that I just can’t deal with the thought of not being a mom… but more often now, I can embrace the fact that I don’thave kids, which means I have no excuse not to find time for some art. Even if it can’t be every day.

I love to write as well. Also a big time sucker. So you might see spurts of blog posts and spatters of art, and then nothing for a while. But hopefully you will always continue to see it, at least now and again. Because if you don’t, I either gave up… or I’m part of a piece of pottery on somebody’s mantle. And an artist, deep down, always hopes someone might like them… before that happens. 🙂

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Is there anything in your life that you may have put aside for a while… but that you would love to get back to… and dream of even doing full time someday?

Selfie:A strange phenomenon in which the photographer is also the subject of the photograph, in a subversive twist on the traditional understanding of the photograph. Usually conducted because the subject cannot locate a suitable photographer to take the photo, like a friend. ~Source: The Urban Dictionary

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I started this post last year and just never quite completed it. Seeing this week’s photo challenge reminded of it, so I thought I’d finish it up.

I don’t personally take many #selfies. The photos you see here are a few that I have. The truth is, I just really like #selfies. And for some reason, I can’t stop studying them. I see them from an aesthetic, expressionist, perspective… as an inevitable product of the digital, media-centric age. i don’t take them too seriously, yet i am visually fascinated by them. I am intrigued by the phenomenon and its creative evolution. #selfies are a form of self-portraiture… an artistic genre that has been popular since roughly the mid 1500’s.

selfie shadow in the grass

While I would lean toward views of an underlying, or outright narcissism in regards to the #selfie, this quality can be healthy and beneficial, when practiced in reasonable and relatively limited doses. I have always been curious what it must feel like to have the confidence to look in the mirror, or at a photo of myself, and actually like what i see – physically… like it enough to blast it all over Facebook and Instagram. That type of confidence is foreign to me. I really have no ideawhat that feels like, since it has quite literally never happened. Friends and family, and even kind strangers would tell me it’s purely a lack of self-esteem. And in response, i would say… “yes it is about 50% that, and about 75%… “i do not have the looks or the body to even think about putting myself out there without being pummeled with insults”.

But a #selfie taker, at that moment they are snapping and posting their photo, must be experiencing some level of that confident feeling. I imagine one’s personal thoughts at that moment might range anywhere from:

a.”look at me, I’m not creepy, I have good hygene, hire me” to…

b. “look at me having fun, drinking heavily, looking tan!” to…

c. “don’t act like you don’t want some of this…!” to…

d. “duck face.”

I initially found myself unwillingly surrounded by #selfies as I patrolled Instagram for art, and photography (The social media site that has had my undivided attention since the introduction of high speed internet and mobile devices). But more recently, i am drawn to them as a form of creative expression. As inspiration for outfits and gestures for the naive-portraits i draw. I also ask myself honestly, if it was possible for me to like what i see in the mirror, would i engage in the same activity?… If I answered honestly, I would say, Probably. Why not? In fact, I have (extremely hesitantly) engaged in at least level a., if not occasionally in level b. And most of us who have any type of online presence probably have at some point. I know and love many people who practice full on level c and d. #selfies. And I am not ashamed to “like” them. My photos and art, whether specifically self-portraits or not, are just as much “about me”, as any #selfie photo i see on Instagram. It just took me longer to make it and it’s slightly more anonymous.

My purpose in writing this post, is not to express any judgement of the #selfie or what anyone shares online. It’s simply to light-heartedly notice those that succeed in catching your eye… regardless of the perfect six-pack and the number of hottie-hearts it generated. What is the photo really capturing? What comes through? What are they hiding? I have always been fascinated and inspired by portraits, and self-portraits… of all styles, genre’s and mediums.I have also always loved beauty and fashion… but don’t expect to see me wearing the latest designs and hairdo’s. I did enjoy some of that in my more youthful years, but these days fashion is a painful afterthought. As a hopeless introvert, I am very comfortable as the wall flower, the people watcher, the voyer to fictional personas. I am happy to be a humble observer in this #selfie mania… to imagine what the person could be thinking, and who someone is behind the mask of that image. I find #selfies to be among the many (while quick and easy) forms of self-portraiture and creative expression… an expression of sometimes deep and inward, sometimes practical, and often times shallow and self-centered motives… but regardless it is capturing a moment of a person’s existence. It’s important to that person for whatever reason, and that’s fascinating. And, it is out there in front of the entire world… forever. Powerful.

I began sketching a lot of naive portraits and #selfies without thinking about it much. I do my best with the little formal education I have to capture facial expressions and gestures, while embracing my lack of skill and artistic knowledge and just have fun with it. It wasn’t until I saw some of my sketches laid out and in print, that I thought about why I chose them as a subject and decided to write about it.

Share your #selfie thoughts and photos! Get crazy creative, and as dolled up as you like! Nothing wrong with feeling pretty… and flaunt it whether you’ve “got it” or not!!

… sometimes I do these little random scribbles, on paper or in the Paint program… whether it’s meditation or procrastination… I get something out of it. I think I enjoy the simplicity of scribbling, and in Paint it’s easy to pour in an endless rainbow of colors.

Many I never look at again… the meditation/procrastination is simply in the scribbling. It’s freedom in one of it’s most authentic forms. Seriously… where could you possibly be more free? But when it’s over, what appears is sometimes quite interesting. Here’s one I like to stare at sometimes.